1. Field
The present invention relates to an apparatus for amplifying nucleic acids, and more particularly, to a nucleic acid amplifying apparatus having a uniform distribution of reaction temperature in a reaction space.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to assay genetic information of nucleic acids such as DNA or RNA for base sequence analysis, medical diagnosis, and the like, amplification of trace amounts of nucleic acids in large quantities is required.
To this end, cell lysis, amplification of nucleic acids, or capillary electrophoresis (CE) may be performed. As nucleic acid amplification techniques well known in the art, there are a typical isothermal amplification technique, such as LCR (Ligase Chain Reaction), SDA (Strand Displacement Amplification), NASBA (Nucleic Acid Sequence-Based Amplification), or TMA (Transcription Mediated Amplification), and non-isothermal amplification techniques such as PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction).
A typical non-isothermal amplification, PCR is performed by repeated cycles of thermal reactions: denaturation, annealing, and extension, which are to be performed in specific temperature ranges to acquire nucleic acids in high yields with great fidelity. In other words, it is preferable to maintain the reaction temperature in a constant range for both isothermal amplification and non-isothermal amplification.
Cell lysis is a process of disrupting cell membranes and releasing intracellular structures, for example, typically removal of DNA or RNA from the cell prior to amplification such as PCR. Cell lysis is largely performed using a mechanical or non-mechanical method. In particular, it is preferable to maintain a heating temperature during the non-mechanical method of disrupting many intracellular structures by heating cells.
Recently, there has been increasing demand for Lab-On-a-Chip (LOC) on which reactions such as cell lysis, nucleic acid amplification, and so on, are performed on a single microarray substrate. In a lab-on-a-chip (LOC), since nucleic acids are amplified in a tiny substrate, controlling a temperature of each reaction chamber for cell lysis or nucleic acid amplification influences analysis efficiency.
However, according to the distance from a heating unit, the number of heating units in the vicinity of each site, or the area occupied by the heating units, temperatures may vary at various sites of the reaction space or cell lysis space. In this case, different temperatures at various sites of the reaction space or cell lysis space may reduce the yield of nucleic acids or cause deterioration in the fidelity of the acquired nucleic acids.